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St. Louis, Mo., Jan 8, 2016 / 03:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A massive cleanup is left for those whose homes were in the path of one of the worst floods in the St. Louis area in over two decades.

“I have been fervently praying for those suffering due to the recent flooding in our city and state. As our region watched the flood waters rise to record heights, so too did we see the damage, loss, and suffering increase,” Archbishop Robert J. Carlson of St. Louis said in a Jan. 7 statement.

More than 10 inches of rain fell on the St. Louis area over three days starting on Dec. 26, 2015 the Associated Press reported. At least 15 people in Missouri, and 10 in Illinois, were killed due to the flooding. Thousands were forced to leave their homes and only recently were they able to return and begin the cleanup process – if their homes were still standing.

“We mourn for those who lost their lives. We know that many homes full of memories have been destroyed. Photos, heirlooms, and other keepsakes are lost. Businesses were devastated and will need extensive repairs,” Archbishop Carlson said.

He announced that all parishes in the diocese have been instructed to hold special collections the weekend of Jan. 16-17 to raise assistance for the flood victims through Catholic Charities of St. Louis.

“Those most impacted by the flooding will be recovering long after the water has disappeared,” he said. “It is my pledge that the Catholic Church will continue serving those in the impacted areas until these needs are met. This is our responsibility as Catholics, especially during this Year of Mercy.”

Yvonne Berry, who is working with the American Red Cross of Eastern Missouri to coordinate the local Multi-Agency Resource Centers, or MARCs, said that even though the rain has stopped, many families are still in need of basic necessities such as water, food, and shelter.

Right now, she said, the most important thing is that families know where to turn for help.  Local agencies including Catholic Charities of St. Louis, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, Lutheran Family Children Services, United Way, and the Salvation Army have teamed up to offer their help in one place, making it easier for families to get the help they need.

At the MARCs, which will open Jan. 9, families can pick up cleanup kits, have their property damage assessed, and receive help navigating the paperwork involved with receiving emergency aid.

The American Red Cross of Eastern Missouri is sending teams of caseworkers, nurses, and mental health professionals into communities to offer assistance and determine just how much damage has been done. Food trucks have also been sent out to serve lunch and dinner to those still in their homes.

“The water is starting to recede but our damage assessment team is still out in the community,” Berry said.

Catholic Charities of St. Louis was contacted, but did not respond in time for the deadline.

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Rome, Italy, Jan 8, 2016 / 03:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Funds raised during the collection in Pope Francis' public Masses in Mexico have a special destination: they will be used to build two new welcoming centers for the country’s large influx of immigrants.

“On the occasion of the Extraordinary Holy Year of Mercy we have decided to open two new welcoming centers for immigrants: one at the border with Mazapa (de Madero) and another in Salto de Agua,” Bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel said a Dec. 30 interview with Zenit news agency.

“I told the Pope that the collection we are doing for the visit, in agreement with the Episcopal Conference, will be destined for the construction of these two new structures. It is what we will symbolically deliver in the collection of the Mass.”

Bishop Esquivel heads the Mexican diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, near Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, where Pope Francis will visit on his third full day in Mexico.

The Pope is scheduled to make a Feb. 12-17 visit to the country, during which he will also travel to the crime-ridden city of Morelia and the U.S.-Mexico border town Ciudad Juarez. He will also pay a visit to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which he has stated is the primary reason for going to Mexico.

Veneration of Our Lady of Guadalupe goes back to the 16th century when a “Lady from Heaven” appeared to Saint Juan Diego, a poor Indian from Tepeyac, on a hill northwest of Mexico City. Over the course of a series of apparitions in 1531, the Woman, who identified herself as the Mother of the True God, instructed Juan Diego to have the bishop build a church on the site.

As a sign, the now-famous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was imprinted miraculously on his tilma. Both the image and the tilma remain intact after more than 470 years.

Francis will hold a public Mass every day of the trip, apart from the day he arrives, adding up to five in total. Collection funds from all of them will go toward the two new welcoming centers for immigrants.

A regular contributor to Zenit’s Spanish edition, Bishop Esquivel spoke with the agency during a recent two-week trip to Rome to flesh out the final details ahead of the Pope’s visit.

He met with the Pope at his residence in the Vatican’s Santa Martha guesthouse alongside the Archbishop of Tuxla Gutierrez, Fabio Martínez Castilla.

In the course of the meeting, Pope Francis explained that aside from visiting the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, his main reason for going to Mexico are the problems the country faces due to migration and violence, Bishop Esquivel told Zenit.

After informing Francis of their plans for the collection money raised during his public Masses, the bishop said he also explained that the local church already manages three other such centers: one in Palenque, a second in Comitán de Dominguez and a third in San Martín de Porres, which was just inaugurated Nov. 3, 2015.

All three of the centers are in the Chiapas region of Mexico, which has a high indigenous population and sits along the country’s border with Guatemala.

The problem of immigration in Mexico “is serious,” the bishop said, noting that the number of incoming migrants tends to increase when “work or security for people is lacking.”

Most of Mexico’s incoming migrants are from what the bishop referred to as “the northern triangle of Central America.” Namely, from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Others also arrive from Cuba, India and China.

Bishop Esquivel explained that among those who come are many mothers with young children. He recounted how one of these women with a 10 month old baby told him if she stayed in Honduras, “they will kill me and take my daughter.”

“This is what happens with migration to Europe, (it’s) because of the lack of security and work.”

When asked why so many choose to go to the United States when they are unable to become regularized citizens, the bishop responded by saying the problem is often aggravated by “false information.”

Parents, he said, are misled into thinking that “if children arrived to the United States they could acquire citizenship automatically, which is not true, and these lies serve the ones who exploit migrants, charging them $3-5,000 to let them pass (the border).”

“It pains us a lot to see groups of people walk for kilometers and kilometers and arrive at our welcoming centers with blistered feet, sick,” the bishop said, explaining that the centers they have established offer migrants basic assistance such as access to food, beds and showers.

There is also a certain juridical protection that is offered, “so that they can have legal refuge or also defend themselves from violations that there are on the part of some minor authorities.”

While some Mexican authorities have been “ambivalent” in their position toward incoming migrants, there is still “too much control for them to pass,” Bishop Esquivel said.

One example he pointed to was the fact that migrants are not allowed to cross the border on the famous train called “the beast,” which is a network of Mexican freight trains frequently used by U.S.-bound immigrants who want to pass through Mexico more quickly.

Because using the train is illegal, immigrants are left to search for “other paths that are more dangerous,” Bishop Esquivel observed.

On the topic of drug trafficking, the bishop was asked how there can be such high levels of drug related problems and violence in Mexico, a predominantly Catholic country where nearly everyone considers themselves to be a “guadalupano,” that is, a committed devotee to Our Lady of Guadalupe, or the Virgin Mary, in a more general translation.

In response, he said that money is a major root cause: “Unfortunately money corrupts everything, at times event the Church itself,” he noted, explaining that many youth can't find work, and as a result “these criminal gangs recruit them, force them to steal, to kill, to traffic drugs.”

And if they don't do what the gangs want, “(the gangs) kill them along with their families.”

However, despite the depth of the country’s wide range of problems, Bishop Esquivel said that people are excited for the Pope’s upcoming visit.

Pope Francis is giving everyone a much-needed “Gospel kick…and because of this the people love him a lot,” he said.

It’s not only the Pope’s humility and simplicity the people admire, but the fact that Francis “is going to the essence of the Gospel, and he doesn't leave the bishops or himself out.”

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Kevin Lamarque, Reuters

By Mark Pattison

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- When President Barack Obama unveiled a series of executive orders Jan. 5 intended to make a dent in gun violence in the United States, people reacted. And how.

"Thank God that someone finally has the courage to close the loopholes in our pitiful gun control laws to reduce the number of mass shootings, suicides and killings that have become a plague in our country," said Bishop Kevin J. Farrell of Dallas in a Jan. 5 entry titled "The Cowboy Mentality" on his blog.

"Obama's executive actions, though modest, are first steps in correcting gun laws so weak that they are ludicrous," Bishop Farrell added. "Congress has unabashedly sold itself to the gun lobby. If there was ever any doubt, its recent action to kill legislation to ban people on the terrorist no-fly list (from obtaining guns) made it obvious."

"Violence in our society is a complex issue with many facets, taking many forms. While no measure can eliminate all acts of violence which involve firearms, we welcome reasonable efforts aimed at saving lives and making communities safer, said a Jan. 6 statement by Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

"We hope Congress will take up this issue in a more robust way, considering all of the varied aspects involved. In addition to reasonable regulation, conversations must include strengthening social services for persons with mental illness, while being mindful that the vast majority of those suffering with mental illness are not likely to commit violent criminal acts," Archbishop Wenski added.

He noted, "For a long time now, the bishops of the United States have called for reasonable policies to help reduce gun violence."

That dates back to at least 1994, when the bishops approved a pastoral statement, "Confronting a Culture of Violence."

Citing data from the National Center for Health Statistics, the statement said, "Between 1979 and 1991, nearly 50,000 American children and teenagers were killed by guns, matching the number of Americans who died in battle in Vietnam. It is now estimated 13 American children die every day from guns. Gunshots cause one out of four deaths among American teenagers." The bishops added that guns in the United States had quadrupled from 50 million to 201 million between 1950 and 1990. The 2013 estimate: 300 million.

"Curbing the easy availability of deadly weapons" was one of 14 points in the statement's "framework for action." The statement embraced a broad definition of violence, from abortion to war to domestic abuse to capital punishment to "the slow motion violence of poverty."

The bishops lauded the work of Greater Bridgeport Interfaith Action in Connecticut, which successfully passed a ban on assault weapons later upheld by the courts. "Legislative networks can advocate for public policies," the statement said, that can, among other things, "prevent and combat crime, restrict dangerous weapons" and promote safe communities."

The elements of Obama's executive orders:

-- Anyone who sells guns is considered a gun dealer and must get a license and conduct background checks of prospective buyers. The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms will in turn work to speed up the background check process.

-- The addition of 200 ATF agents and investigators to enforce gun laws already on the books.

-- The expenditure of $500 million to bolster mental health care nationwide, as many who take part in mass shootings have been shown to be mentally ill. Moreover, two-thirds of U.S. gun deaths are suicides.

-- Added research into gun safety technology, such as trigger locks and fingerprint verification to keep stolen firearms from being used. "If we can do it for your iPad, there's no reason we can't do it with a stolen gun," Obama said at the White House event unveiling the executive orders. "If a child can't open a bottle of aspirin, we should make sure that they can't pull a trigger on a gun."

Not everyone was receptive to Obama's executive orders.

David Daleiden, founder of the Center for Medical Progress, which released a series of surreptitious Planned Parenthood videos last year, said in a Jan. 6 statement, "Yesterday, President Obama wiped tears from his eyes saying: 'Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad.' Mr. President, show the same outrage and compassion for the kids who are killed and harvested for body parts at Planned Parenthood, and parted out and sold across the country like used cars."

Republican presidential candidates also rejected Obama's executive orders. "If you live by the pen you die by the pen, and my pen has got an eraser," said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said he will "fight as hard as I can against any effort by this president, or by any liberal that wants to take away people's rights that are embedded in the Bill of Rights, embedded in our Constitution." Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey called Obama a "petulant child."

But more Catholic-affiliated voices supported Obama.

The Franciscan Action Network said in a statement, "Three years ago, FAN was a strong supporter of the bipartisan Manchin-Toomey proposal which would have expanded background checks had it not failed in the Senate. In those three years since, there have been multiple mass shootings plus killings every day in cities, towns and rural areas across the United States. We applaud yesterday's statement by President Obama and encourage Congress to follow his lead and revisit gun safety legislation."

"My heart aches that gun violence in the United States is all too common, said a Jan. 5 statement by Sister Simone Campbell, a Sister of Social Service who is executive director of Network, the Catholic social justice lobby. "Today President Obama has taken action to do what he can while Congress has refused to act. It is urgently needed that we take a step beyond lamentation toward action to effectively prevent further killing. We, as a people, must move to action rather than be mired by apathy."

Lawrence O. Gostin faculty director at Georgetown University's O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, said in a Jan. 5 statement, "Firearm injuries are, first and foremost, a public health problem. We can and should use the law as a tool to prevent and control firearm injuries. We can prevent a great deal of gun violence and unintentional injuries such as by suicide, and accidental shootings in the home. Firearm injuries are not a disease that we think of as a public health concern. But the truth is that firearm injuries are one of the most preventable threats to the public. In fact, firearm injuries are more preventable than infectious diseases."

Liza Gold, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown's medical school, said in a separate Jan. 5 statement, "President Obama's executive actions following the Newtown massacre (in which 26 people, including 20 children, died at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut) lifted the ban on federal funding for the CDC (the federal Centers for Disease Control) to conduct research regarding gun violence. Nevertheless, Congress has refused to pass proposed legislation that includes such funding. We encourage the executive and legislative branches of the federal government to also allocate funds for research that can guide policy."

And therein lies the rub. A GOP-run Congress is unlikely to give Obama a policy victory on guns in a presidential election year -- a fact acknowledged by the president. "It will be hard, and it won't happen overnight," Obama said. "It won't happen during this Congress. It won't happen during my presidency."

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